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Franklyn D Resort -FDR 05/20/2003
Reviewers Rating:  Great
My husband and I along with our 15 month old daughter stayed at FDR- in Runaway Bay May 10 for 4nts. I have been to Jamaica 8 times and have stayed at a variety of resorts, however we picked this resort because of the nanny program. The nanny program is wonderful.
First off if you are expecting a 6 star hotel, this is not 6 star. If you are expecting it to be really fancy, this is not it. However if you expect it to be comfortable and to grow on you, it will. I had done a lot of research on this hotel prior to our trip so I fully believed that I was prepared for a smaller less fancy hotel. However at first I was a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong that changed. I just needed to quite comparing it to other hotels and fully enjoy what this hotel had to offer. I do believe there are things that need to be updated but all in all it was wonderful.
The ride to the hotel is about 1hr 15minutes away. The road from Montego Bay to the hotel is currently under construction, so beware of a bumpy ride. When we arrived at the resort, the first impression was not great. I did not find the front desk person to be very friendly. She told us our room was not ready yet-it was only 10:50am so I did not expect our room to be ready yet. We were told to head down to the beach grill and they would come find us. I found that hard to believe since they didn't even know us. However sure enough about 30minutes later our nanny- Shawn, found us at the beach grill. I guess "new" people stick out like sore thumbs. Since I didn't really know where anything was, I had my daughter in her stroller instead of a highchair and was holding her plate to eat. The first thing Shawn did was offer to hold her plate so I could eat my lunch. Right then and there I knew I was on vacation. After we were done eatting, our nanny walked us to our room and then gave us a walk around tour of our resort.
Pool & Beach: The brochures state that there are 3 pools. I guess I would really say only 1. That is because there is the main pool, then a pool attached to the waterslide, but you are only in it when you get out of the slide and then I guess the 3rd pool is a really small baby pool. The main pool is very basic, no swim up pool bar. Also I think for a family resort, a zero entry area would be very nice. I think if the pool was redone to be more accommodating for smaller kids it would be nice. As I was fully aware of, the beach area is very small, which is great for kids. It is just 2 small areas. There are quite a few rocks and you can't go out very far in one area with out coming across the rocks. There are sand toys provided and stored down at the beach. We never had a problem finding beach chairs. However towels were another story. They were always running out of them. Since the beach area is tucked back a little, you don't get much of a breeze. However you can use the beach, but not chairs, next door at Breezes Runaway Bay. The beach area there is absolutely beautiful. It is a long, smooth streatch of beach, clear water with a reef you can snorkel out to. You do have to walk past the nude side of their beach, in case that bothers you. We have beautiful fish swim right up to us. Also you get a wonderful breeze over there.
Room: We had a 1 bedroom suite. The living room, kitchen and bathroom are not air conditioned. The bedroom is airconditioned, however ours did not work great. When we asked our nanny about it, she thought it was working great. I guess they are used to the hot weather. We had a king size bed in the bedroom along with a crib. I think the room needed some updating. There were some stains on the ceiling and the walls needed painting. There is a really nice ceiling fan in the living room. A ceiling fan in the bedroom would have made a big difference. The bathtub drain did not hold water, so that made it hard to give my daughter a bath. You can fill out a form each day for the nanny to stock your fridge. You can choose from pop, beer, milk, juice, fresh fruit, cheese, crackers, cereal etc. She cleans your room and does your dishing daily too. We did encounter quite a few ants and bugs in the room. I know that it is the caribbean, I just had more in my room than at other resorts.
Kids Center: Several playground areas, all shaded. The kids center is indoors with lots of toys. They have video games on TVs, not the stand up games. They have movie time each night. It seems like the older kids were always having a blast. They had organized things going on all the time, karate, arts and crafts, tie dye (which my 15month old did) etc. Everynight they had a kids disco at 730pm which was really cute. All the kids made mothers day presents with their nannys. Gift shop only had 1 size of diapers, which were size 3- very basic shop.
Food: There are 2 restaurants and the beach grill. Beach grill is open at 1130am and stays open til 730pm. They have burgers,fries, hotdogs,jerk chicken and jerk pork and grilled cheese. At 530pm they set up a kiddie buffet which also includes PB &J , fish or chicken fingers, jello, pasta, cookies etc. They have plenty of highchair, which are rather worn. Most people seems to have their nanny take the kids to dinner. We were the odd parents that seemed to have cocktails while our daughter ate. They played kids music during this time. We ate breakfast and most lunches in the main -Verandah restaurant. The meals would be posted each day on a chalk board. They had fruit, cereal,juice, pancakes, waffles, french toast, bacon, make any kind of eggs etc. At lunch there were always a variety of salads, soup, several meats, pasta, made to order pizza etc. The buffets are not as huge as other resorts but everything was good. Dinner was very good. On Saturday nights they have their Jamaican buffet dinner which is good. The other nights we were there it was ala-carte. We had things like shrimp cocktail, ceasar salad, steak, mahi mahi, chicken, cheesecake etc. For dinner it is served on the deck. Entertainment starts at 830pm so if eater later, you can enjoy it while you eat. The adults only restaurant is Italian. This is also good- I had the pasta with shrimp,fish and mussels. This is also outside on a pier. There are several bars on property. The main bar by the pool is where things happen. There is also an adults only bar at the Italian restaurant, piano bar and disco. The main bar closes at 12 midnight. Piano bar and disco are air conditioned.
Nanny: Again what a wonderful program. If you are traveling with kids this is the only way to go. There are lot of hotels out there with kids programs, but this is one that someone is there for your child 1 on 1. There are also organized activities for them, but it is nice to know that someone is always there for them. Your nanny is "included" from 9am-4:40pm. They get 1 hour off for lunch. We knew right away that we wanted to hire our nanny every night. It is $4.00 per hour after 4:40pm. We had her return each night at 7pm and 1 night stayed out til 1230am and another night only until 9:15pm. Some families hired theirs right away at 440pm. Sometimes it was hard to realize that you did not have to rush back to the room to change a diaper or put them down for a nap- someone else was always willing to do it. My daughter got along with her nanny right away. Our nanny was a little bit quieter than other nannys but she did a great job.
One thing that would have been very helpful is if the staff memembers (not nannys) would have worn name tags or certain color shirts. There were some people that we had no clue were employees until later in the week.
The folage was beautiful. I think that several structual things just need to be updated. This resort opened in 1990 and has seen its fair share of wear and tear. Again though if the kids are happy then mom and dad are happy. It was nice because of the size, if you needed to run back to your room for something you could in a minute. If you saw a kid on the beach, you probably knew who they were or their parents or their nanny. You just recognize every one.
Check out: We experienced a problem, which may have been a 1 time thing. When we got our reconfirmation under our door, it had a different return flight time (off by 2 1/2 hours earlier) I checked with the front to see if this was correct and it took 4 hours for them to get the correct answer. If I had not been very persistant on this situation they would have just let me believe that this was correct. What happened was when the person reconfirms the flights they did it for the wrong airline. We were on a charter company called USA 3000 and they reconfirmed for US Air. If we would have just taken the earlier shuttle, we would have been at the airport 6 hours prior to our correct departure with a baby. Luckily I would not let the issue rest until I had the correct answer.
All in all I would definately go back with my daughter. I would also like to try the new resort FDR Pebbles. If you have any questions feel free to e-mail.
Elaine & Jamie
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